The biggest of the Internet giants, Google, has made a commitment to education. I would hope that makes you jump up and down and shout whoo-whooo! This is really exciting news. When a company as big and as creative as Google makes a commitment to you and your students, it is certainly something to explore and that is what we are going to do today.

They have created a site called Google for Educators (www.google.com/educators) and we will take a look at that site, but the tools that we are going to talk about and look at today go beyond what is found in the GFE (google for educators) site.

Google Notebook

I want to start with what I consider to be maybe the most useful of all the Google tools, Google Notebook.  Go to www.google.com/notebook and let’s take a look at what this tool is all about. Google Notebook might just be the best web research aid on the planet. It is like favorites on lots of steroids.

1. Log in to notebook using your gmail credentials (you can enter your entire gmail address or you can use everything before the @ symbol). 
2. The first thing that I want you to notice is that you have a default notebook called “My Notebook.” All of the stuff that you collect in Google Notebook is organized in notebooks. (Duh!)
3. Let’s start by creating a notebook for today’s workshop. Click on “Create A New Notebook” and give it a name. I am going to name my “Google Tools Workshop.”
4. When you click OK you will see an empty box. That box is a note. You can type your notes in this box. So, for example, if I am at a conference or a workshop and I want to take notes, I can create a notebook for the conference or for the specific session at the conference and take my notes in this notebook.
5. Notice that when you begin typing, a comment button appears. That might not make much sense now, but it will in a few minutes.
6. The purpose of the labels is to assign key words to a note. If you add labels to your notes you can easily find all those notes, even if they are spread across multiple notebooks. You do that by clicking on the keyword (label) in the Labels panel in the lower left hand corner of the screen. (You may have to refresh the page for the label to show up.)
7. You can take all your notes in this one note holder or you can add more notes. Add notes by clicking on the New Note button. You can also just click below the existing note to create a new note.
8. Take note of all the formatting tools that are available to change the look and feel of your notes.

 If that is all there was to Google Notebook it would a be a pretty cool tool. However, that is not all there and I have saved the best for last. At the top of the window you should see a link that says something about a "Browser Extensions."

1. Click the link
2. To use this feature you have to download and install the Google Toolbar. That is not a bad thing, but you need to be aware that that is what you are doing.
3. Click on Agree and Download (You will have to do this on any computer on which you want to use this feature.
4. When you are finished you will have to close Internet Explorer and restart it.
5. When IE has restarted, you will now have a new toolbar at the top of you window with a lot of buttons and features on it. We want to focus in on the Google Notebook button. Click on it.
6. This opens Notebook in what is called the "mini-view" So what is so cool about the mini view?
7. Go to http://labs.google.com. Let's say that you are doing research for a lesson or for a project that you are working on and this page is has some good information on it that you want to use.
8. Right click anywhere on the page and select "Note This." A link to the pages is added to your current notebook.
9. Notice that the cursor is blinking in the comments section of the note. Put a comment in the comment section.
10. So you can use Google Notebook to create categorized, annotated sets of favorites. But there is more.
11. Click on Experimental Search
12. Highlight the text at the top of the page.
13. Right click the highlight and select Note This.
14. Take a look at that note!
15. But wait, there is more. Go to www.google.com/images and search for dogs.
16. Click on a picture to open it. (It will be better if you can find a small picture for our purposes today.)
17. You probably want to view the picture in its original context so click that link.
18. Now right click on the picture and note it.
19. Not only does it add the picture, it includes a link to the page and the title of the page!
20. Let's take it one step farther. Go to http://scott.esc2.net and highlight the Professional and Educational Biography section, including the two images. Note that section and you will see that the images are included also.

Go back to Notebook in full screen view and let's take a look at a few more features.

1. Notice that notes can be expanded and contracted (left hand side of each note.)
2. When you hoover over the left side of a note, a blue bar appears. Click, hold and drag that blue bar to move the note.
3. To delete a note, click on the drop down arrow on the far right side of the note and select Delete.
4. Near the top of the window you will find a Tools button. Click on it and you will find options to print, export to Google Docs, rename, delete, and a couple of other options.
5. There are also a couple of sort options that you might find useful. I don't use them very often.
6. Click on Sharing Options. To make this notebook visible by anyone on the web, you select the Yes radio button at the bottom of the window.
7. You can also invite others to collaborate with you on any given notebook.
8. Click on the Yes button. On the right side of the page you will see a link to the page where this notebook will reside.
9. You can also invite others to view the notebook once you have published it.
10. There is a new feature in the mini view of notebook. You may have noticed the "what's this" star. Highlight any text or image on a web page and click on the star to note the seleted information.
11. You can also mix and match notes that were created from web pages and notes that you type manually. Just click in the empty space between any two notes and start typing.
12. Spend some time looking at other features in the new Google Toolbar
    1. New buttons (gadgets)
    2. Bookmarks (have you bookmarks available wherever you go). Use the yellow star to add a page to your Google Bookmarks.
    3. Find allows you to search for words on a page.

Google Docs

(There are three files, a Word Doc, a spreadsheet, and a PowerPoint at http://www.chris.esc2.net/GoogleTools/default.htm. Participants should download those files to their computer.)

The next tool that we want to look at is one that may have the most uses for your students, and because of its ease of sharing, for you. It is called Google Docs. Go to www.google.com/docs and log in if you have to. Google Docs is a collection of three Office type applications that exist online. You have a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a presentation program. I do want to say that this is not Microsoft Office, but it is also much cheaper than MS Office. In fact, the cost is $0. There is nothing to buy and nothing to download. All you need is a browser. With Google Docs you can...

Create documents, spreadsheets and presentations online

Create basic documents from scratch.
You can easily do all the basics, including making bulleted lists, sorting by columns, adding tables, images, comments, formulas, changing fonts and more.

Upload your existing files.
Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc. So go ahead and upload your existing files.

Familiar desktop feel makes editing a breeze.
Just click the toolbar buttons to bold, underline, indent, change font or number format, change cell background color and so on.

Share and Collaborate in Real Time

Choose who can access your documents.
Just enter the email addresses of the people with whom you want to share a given document and send them an invitation.

Share instantly.
Anyone you've invited to either edit or view your document, spreadsheet or presentation can access it as soon as they sign in.

Edit and present with others in real time.
Multiple people can view and make changes at the same time. There's an on-screen chat window for spreadsheets, and document revisions show you exactly who changed what, and when. Viewing a presentation together is a breeze, as anyone joined in a presentation can automatically follow along with the presenter

Safely store and organize your work

Edit and access from anywhere.
There's nothing to download; you access your documents, spreadsheets and presentations from any computer with an Internet connection and a standard browser. And it's free.

Safely store your work.
Online storage and auto-save mean you needn't fear local hard drive failures or power outages.

Easily save and export copies.
You can save your documents and spreadsheets to your own computer in DOC, XLS, CSV, ODS, ODT, PDF, RTF and HTML formats.

Organize your documents
Easily find your documents by organizing them into folders. Drag and drop your documents into as many folders as you want.

Control who can see your documents

Publish your work as a web page.
You can publish your documents online with one click, as normal-looking web pages, without having to learn anything new.

Control who can see your pages.
You can publish to the entire world, just a few people or no one -- it's up to you. (You can also un-publish at any time.)

Post your documents to your blog.
Once you've created a document, you can post it to your blog.

 

To be a little more specific...

 

Here's what you can do with documents:

• Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text (or create documents from scratch).
• Use our simple WYSIWYG editor to format your documents, spell-check them, etc.
• Invite others (by e-mail address) to edit or view your documents and spreadsheets.
• Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
• View your documents' and spreadsheets' revision history and roll back to any version.
• Publish documents online to the world, as Web pages or post documents to your blog.
• Download documents to your desktop as Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip.
• Email your documents out as attachments.

Here's what you can do with spreadsheets:

• Import and export of .xls, .csv, .txt and .ods formatted data (and export functionality for .pdf and html).
• Enjoy intuitive navigation and editing, like any traditional document or spreadsheet.
• Use formatting and formula editing in spreadsheets so you can calculate results and make your data look the way you want it.
• Chat in real time with others who are editing your spreadsheet.
• Embed a spreadsheet, or a piece of a spreadsheet, in your blog or website.

Here's what you can do with presentations:

• Import existing presentations in .ppt and .pps file types.
• Export your presentations using the Save as Zip feature from the File menu.
• Edit your presentations using our simple WYSIWYG editor.
• Insert images, and format your slides to fit your preferences.
• Share and edit presentations with your friends and coworkers.
• Allow real-time viewing of presentations, online, from separate remote locations.
• Publish your presentations on the web, allowing access to a wide audience.

1. Select New - Document
2. Begin by typing some stuff into the doc.
3. Take a look at the tools on the edit toolbar. They will be pretty familiar.
4. Click on the Insert toolbar and select image. You can either select an image from your computer or you can link to an image on the web. (Show them you to do this with Creative Commons.)
5. Again on the insert menu, you can insert a hyperlink but you can also just type a link like you would in Word.
6. I can't see you using bookmarks too often, but that is an option.
7. In separator you will find a page break option and a horizontal line option.
8. Select File - Revision History. This is pretty cool. Just select an earlier revision to revert to that version of the document.
9. Now I am going to share this doc with Ric and Scott and let you see how that works. It is pretty cool. You can share yours with the person sitting next to you if you like... at least one of you share with the other one.
10. click on the Share button.
11. You can decide if the people you share with will be collaborators, and therefore, able to actually work on the document with you, or just viewers. I am going to share them as a collaborator.
12. Enter the Gmail addresses of the collaborators and click on Invite Collaborators. (Follow the steps on the next page.0
13. Now the invitees will get an email with a link to the doc. We can now collaborate synchronously (all at the same time) or asynchronously (at different times.) I want you to see how the synchronous collaboration works because it is pretty cool.
14. Once you doc is finished you have some pretty cool options.
15. File - Export as Word will export the doc to your computer and open or save it as a Word doc which you can now edit in Word just like any other doc. You can do the same thing to a pdf. (I am assuming that you have to have Acrobat Reader to view this but I am not sure. This could be a way to create PDF's without buying Acrobat Pro.)
16. With the Email feature (now located under the Share button in upper right hand corner) you can email this doc to someone as an attachment.
17. Clicking publish (located in the Share drop down in the upper right hand corner of the screen) will give you some options for making your doc public. If you click Publish Document you will see a link where the doc will be publicly available. Also notice that you can tell Google Docs to re-publish whenever I make a change.
18. You can also un-publish a document by simply clicking on the Stop Publishing button.
19. If you have a blog, you can publish directly from here to your blog. (Demonstrate if you want to.)
20. Suppose that you have a Word Doc or two that you would like to convert to a Google Doc so you can publish it or collaborate with some colleagues on it. Is that possible? Yes, it is.
21. Save and close this document to return to the main interface.On the toolbar click on Upload. Use the first box to browse to a Word doc, a spreadsheet, or a PowerPoint presentation on your computer, then click Upload. Voila! You now have a Google Doc!
22. You can also enter the URL of a web page and convert that web page to a Google Doc! Pretty cool stuff!!
23. You can add folders and keep all you Google Doc stuff organized. It is quite simple.
24. Click on save and close and do a new spreadsheet.
25. This doesn't have all the features of Excel, but it has most of the stuff that the average person will want to do.
26. Sharing works really well in this application. You have the ability to open a chat window with your collaborators. (Demonstrate)
27. Explore the interface to get an idea of what you can do.
28. Create a chart.
29. Now create a new presentation. This application is the one that is least like its Office counterpart. It is nice in that you can share, collaborate, and publish, but the feature set is pretty limited compared to PowerPoint.
30. You can format text, insert hyperlinks, images, texts and change themes. There is no animation capability.
31. You can upload an existing PowerPoint so that you can publish and/or share it but be aware that the animation will not work.
32. When you start the presentation, you will see a url that others can view. There is also a chat window for all audience members.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is another application that you have access to as a result of signing up for a Gmail account and it has some really nice features. Probably the best feature of the calendar is the ability to share it with a specific group of people or share it with the world. That means that you can set up a class calendar, enter all important dates for your class, and share it with the world. Send the link home to parents and now parents have easy access to your class calendar. You can also set up other users who can add events to your calendar. It would be pretty simple to set up a school calendar and give two or three people rights to add and manage events. Plus, again, if you make that calendar public, all the parents in your school would be able to check the calendar any time. In fact, your tech savvy parents who know how to use news reader such as Google Reader can even subscribe to your calendar and receive notification whenever new events are added to the calendar. (I tested this and it worked sometimes but not all the time. Hmm... maybe there is a time lag between posting an event and the time that a news aggregator can see it. Not sure what is going on here.)

With Google Calendar you can also set up multiple calendars so you could create a calendar for each of your classes or for you Seniors, your Juniors, and the club you sponsor. Maybe you are also involved with UIL. You could create a separate calendar just for UIL, or you could include important UIL dates on your class calendar. Really, what it all boils down to is with Google Calendar, you get a full featured, multi-view calendar application that may help you keep your life (personal and/or professional) organized. Oh, I forgot to mention, you can also tell Calendar to email you every day with a list of events that are on your calendar for that day AND... it is pretty easy to embed your calendar in a web page so you could post your calendar on your class website. (Don't have a class website? Don't have the time to learn Frontpage or Dreamweaver? Not a problem. You can create your class website in Google Page Creator and embed your calendar in one of the pages. It is so easy that I could teach you everything you need to know in less than three hours.)

1. Go to www.google.com/calendar
2. Log in with you Gmail credentials
3. Add an event. You can do that in two different ways. Simply click on a date and enter a title for the event. You can now click the "Create Event" button and be done with it or you can click the "edit event details" link. Let's do that now.
4. If you click in either of the "When" boxes a calendar will pop up.
5. If you uncheck the "All Day" box you can set a time for this event.
6. If you have multiple calendars you can select a different calendar if you want to. (We will create another calendar shortly.)
7. You can have Calendar notify you about this event either with a pop up or an email. You can also add more reminders for an event. (Notify me a week before, a day before, and 15 minutes before.)
8. Using the "Privacy" option, you can control the visibility of individual events on your calendar. If you share a calendar with someone, that person will see all your events by default. To make a particular event private (so that only you and other calendar owners can see it), just click on "Private." If your calendar isn't currently shared, but you'd like to make a single event public (so that anyone in the world can see it), just click on "Public."
9. If you add a guest, Calendar will email those guests inviting them to the event. The message will give them an opportunity to respond with a "Yes, I will attend" a "No I will not attend," or a "Maybe I will attend." If they choose to reply, the number of guests who said Yes will appear in the details of the event.
10. Go ahead and add another event on the next two days.
11. Now take a look at the different ways that you can view your calendar (Day, Week, Month, Next 4 Days, and Agenda.
12. Use the mini-calendar to navigate between months. Click on a day in the mini-calendar to open that day in Day view.
13. Click on The Add button below the mini-calendar and select Create a New Calendar.
14. Fill in the blanks to create a new calendar. (Talk about the sharing options. Also notice that you can share with specific people only. When you add a specific person you can choose what privileges that person will have.)
15. When you are finished with the settings click on Create Calendar. You now have two different calendars, totally independent of one another.
16. You can choose to see both calendars at the same time or one at a time using the check boxes. Notice that they are color coded.
17. Click on the add button again and select "Add a Public Calendar."  In the search box at the top of the window, type Dallas Cowboys and click "Search Public Calendars."
18. Click on the links to see the calendar and then click on OK to close it.
19. Clicking on the "Add to Calendar" button will add this calendar to your list of calendars. Do that now.
20. Click on the "Return to My Calendar" link at the top of the page.
21. You now have a third calendar in your list of calendars. If it is the same color as the others, change the color so you can differentiate between it and the others in the calendar itself.
22. Now click on Add - Add A Friends Calendar. If you enter the Gmail account of someone who has shared a calendar, you will be able to add that calendar to your calendar.
23. Notice that there is a drop down button on the right side of each calendar in your list. Click on that drop down and select Calendar Settings.
24. Notice that you can embed this calendar in a web page. (Demonstrate this with a page on http://foxesanddogs.googlepages.com and on a page at http://chris.esc2.net.) When you embed a calendar in a web page, others can see your calendar on that web page without logging in to a Google Calendar account. When you add an event, I will see it the next time I visit your web page with the embedded calendar. This is way cool.
25. Tell them that you can subscribe (using the XML button) to a feed of this calendar using a feed reader or feed aggregator such as Google Reader, which we will look at next.) (Note: I was able to make this work in Internet Explorer but not so well in Google Reader.)
26. Click on the "sync with Microsoft Outlook calendar" link at upper right hand corner of page and explore some new features.

Google Earth

I have a shared Google Notebook with some resources you can use to learn about Google Earth. The URL is...

http://www.google.com/notebook/public/16515208487195165393/BDUThIgoQrtDT-aUj

Google Reader

Google Reader is probably my favorite and my most valued of all the Google Tools. It is an RSS reader or RSS Aggregator. It is also known as a feed reader or a news reader. Using RSS is the new way to "do" the web. I could spend the next 30 minutes or so trying to explain what RSS is and why you should use it, but I have a video that really does an excellent job. (Show the Lefever video RSS Made Simple found at http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english)

So RSS is the way to get the web to come to you instead of you going out to find the information. It is the way to create your own information landscape, to manage information overload. Google Reader is Google's answer to an RSS reader. Let's see how it works. 

1. The first thing we need is a feed, an RSS or ATOM feed. Go to http://www.infinitethinking.org/
2. On the right side of the page you will see a button that says "Add To Google." This is the shortcut way to add a feed to Google Reader. Not all websites have this button so you need to know how to do it "standard" way.
3. Go to http://www.gearthblog.com/. I am a little disappointed in google on this blog because they have made it difficult to find the feed file. Notice the graphic on the right hand side of the page with the caption "By Feedburner." That is the link to the feed. (Feedburner is a service that you can use to promote your feed, theoretically attracting more readers.) Click on that button.
4. This is the feed file. Copy the URL.
5. Now go back to Google Reader. You should now see the first feed you added in the list of subscriptions. Click on Add Subscription
6. Paste the URL of the Google Earth Blog into the text box and click Add.
7. That's it. You have now added a second feed and you are beginning to create your very own personal information landscape.
8. Let's add two more. www.coolcatteacher.blogspot.com and http://www.commoncraft.com/blog
9. Now that you have some subscriptions, as these feeds are called (you "subscribe" to a feed), the next thing you will do is begin reading the feeds. That couldn't be simpler. Just click on a feed in the list on the left and any new articles that have been posted will appear on the right.
10. Take a look at the bottom of the first articles in your list. You can "Star" an item. The purpose of doing that is that you can look at all your starred items in one window. (demonstrate.)
11. The next button is the "share" button. Notice that there is a Shared Items button in the upper left hand corner of the window. The really cool thing about shared items is that they are publicly available on a website or, and I really like this one, there is an RSS feed to your shared items. In other words, I can subscribe to your shared items! Or your students can subscribe to your shared items. Or you can subscribe to your colleagues shared items. Do you get the idea? Pretty cool feature.
12. The next button is an email button. Click on it and you can email this "post" as it is called, to anyone.
13. The next box is the Mark As Read box. As you scroll through the posts and read them, this will be marked automatically. (That is the default behavior. It can be changed in Settings (upper right hand corner) on the Preferences page.) After an item is marked as read, it will no longer show up in this list if you have the Show New Items link at the top of the window selected. If you click on All Items you will be able to see previously read items. I often scan a post and then remove the check on the Mark As Read box so it will be there the next time I log in.
14. The last option at the bottom of the screen is to Add a Tag. Tags are like key words. If you assign a tag to an item, that tag will be added to the bottom of your subscription list. If you click on that tag you will see all items from all feeds that you have tagged with that particular tag. This is really powerful.
15. There is more that you can do with your tags. Click on the"Manage Subscriptions" at the bottom of the list of subscriptions. On the preferences tab I like to change the start page to All Items. That is up to you. Notice the checkbox for marking items as read when you scroll past them.
16. Click on the Subscriptions tab. Here you can rename a subscription, delete one, or simply unsubscribe (consider that canceling your subscription). The option to add to a folder assigns a tag to all the posts in that subscription. (You can assign multiple tags to a post.)
17. Click on the Tags tab. Again, you can delete a tag or, and I really like this, you can share a tag. Click on the RSS graphic next to any tag. That turns on sharing for that tag. Now click on the "view public page" link. Another user can copy this link (or the one on the right side of the page with the RSS symbol) and paste that into any feed reader to subscribe to YOUR tag. Think about the implications that could have for sharing information with your students! They could subscribe to your tag or tags and see all the web pages that you want them to see (as long as those pages have a feed). You could also share tag subscriptions with your colleagues and share the work of weeding out the less useful posts while sharing the great ones. The possibilities are pretty far reaching here.
18. Click on the Add a clip to your site link. This is just too cool. If you have a class website, you can paste this code onto the page and get a window of your tag on your website. If you go to http://chris.esc2.net you will see a sample of what this code will do. The Read more... link will take you to the page we looked at previously. Wow are there some good applications for the classroom here. I think you could probably come up with some good applications for parents too using this technology.
19. A couple of other things are worth mentioning here. Right under the Add subscription button you will see a Show link. You can either show only updated subscriptions (those that have items that you haven't read yet) or you can show all subscriptions. Also, in the upper right hand corner of the screen is a tab that let's you view your subscription is a list view instead of an expanded view. You may like this better. I like the expanded view better.
20. There is one bit of geekenese that I want to show you. It is possible to export your subscriptions and then share them with others. Click on Manage Subscriptions and select the Import/Export tab. To export your subscriptions simply click on the link and select a location. Now, if you want to, you can import my subscriptions to get you started. I edited the file to only include educational technology feeds so you won't get any of my non-work stuff. Click on browse, navigate to the workshop folder and select MySubscriptions.xml. Then click OK, then click Upload.

iGoogle - Your Google Homepage

iGoogle is a service that allows you to create and customize a personalized homepage with some really cool features. With iGoogle you can get at-a-glance access to key information from Google and across the web. On this self-designed page, you can choose and organize content such as:

• Your latest Gmail messages
• Headlines from Google News and other top news sources
• Weather forecasts, stock quotes, and movie showtimes
• Bookmarks for quick access to your favorite sites from any computer
• Your own section with content you find from across the web

It is just a really cool tool. Let's take a few mintues to see how it works.

1. Go to www.google.com/ig
2. At the top of the page you will see a link that says "Get Started." Click that link.
3. Start by selecting a theme.
4. Add at least one item of interest. I am going to choose technology.
5. Now log in to your account to see your homepage. Please DO NOT click the Yes, Please link to make this page your homepage on this comptuer.
6. Each of the sections on the page are called gadgets. You can add and remove gadgets with just a few clicks. Remove one or more of the gadgets from your front tab. (There is another tab near the top of the window.)
7. You can also customize the settings for each gadget. For the Weather gadget, click the drop down arrow that is a downward pointing arrow and select Edit Settings. That is the process for editing any gadget. (Note: some gadgets may not have settings that you can customize.) Add the name of your home town. You could also add other cities if you wanted to. This could be really useful if you are doing a unit on weather with  your students. You can see current conditions as well as forecasts for any number of cities. It might be an interesting project to set up a spreadsheet or a database and record daily forecasts (for the next day) and then on the next day record actual conditions. Then you could create a chart that would compare the two. Or you could compare current conditions of multiple cities at multiple times during the day and use that as a data set for teaching spreadsheets. (Note: There is a really cool site called Earth Cam (www.earthcam.com). You can search for a location (Anchorage, Alaska, for example) and find one or more Web cam from that location. You could use these cams in a weather project like the one mentioned above.)
8. Now for the playground. Click on Add Stuff (upper right hand corner). From this page you can add as many gadgets as you like. Let's do one together and then I will let you lexplore.
9. Click on the Lifestyle category on the left side of the page.
10. For the Day In History gadeget, click on Add it now.
11. Now click on "Back to iGoogle homepage" (top left of window)
12. That is all there is to adding a gadget. Notice that you can minimize a gadget just like you can a window in XP. Go ahead and do some exploring and playing with the gadgets. Add as many as you like. I will have some for you to consider in a few mintues, but for now, take about 10 minutes to explore the gadgets. This is a really fertile playground.
13. If you followed my instructions when we were setting this up, you should have a second functional tab. My is technology. Click on your second tab and see what is there. This tab can have a whole different set of gadgets. You can also add other tabs. You might, for instance, add a tab for each of your classes, or one for your classes and one for the clubs that you sponsor. There are any number of things you can do here.
14. Now a word of caution is in order here. If you would like to set igoogle as the homepage for your classroom computers, you probably should not use your gmail account. I would create a new account for my class (or club, or whatever) and use that account for my class homepage. If you don't, then anyone sitting at one of your computers in your classroom may (probably would) have access to your email. BAD!!!! Of course, if Gmail is blocked on your campus, that will not be an issue.
15. Add a new tab, give it a name, and add some content to it.
16. Now for the last piece of this cool little tool. No matter where you are, if you have an Internet connection, you can go to www.igoogle.com, log in with your Gmail credentials, and you will see this page. It is like homepage away from home.

So how might you use this in your classroom? There are a couple of ways that I can think of. First of all, you can create a Gmail account for your class (or classes) and create an iGoogle page with useful gadgets on it. For example, you could use one of the to do lists for posting homework assignments. You could use one of the Links or Favorites tools to list useful web pages.  You could use one of the picture generators for writing prompts. You could use one of the Quotes of the Day for disucssion starters.

I also want to tell you that you don't have to use a Google account to use this little tool. If you have 4 computers in your classroom, you can go to each one individually and create an iGoogle page for THAT computer only. If you have cookies enabled, the iGoogle page will remember the gadgets you have added.

Google Page Creator

Page Creator is a free tool that lets you create web pages right in your browser and publish them to the web with one click. There's no software to download and no web designer to hire. The pages you create are hosted on Google servers and are available at http://yoursitename.googlepages.com for the world to see.

This is, without a doubt, the easiest to use tool for creating webpages in the world. I have done two face to face workshops for very non-techie teachers to teach them how to use Google Page Creator (also known as Googlepages) and I will tell you that I can teach you everything you need to know to create a website before lunch in a workshop setting.

To start using Googlepages you simply go to www.googlepages.com (or http://pages.google.com) and sign in using your Gmail credentials. Your first or "base" site is YourGmailName.googlepages.com. For example, my "base" site is charris4591.googlepages.com. There are some reasons not to publish anything using that site name. It will put your Gmail address out there for all the spammers to see and use, and while Gmail has a good spam filter, this is still not a really good idea. So the first thing you want to do is create a new site. Before you do, let me tell you that you are allowed 5 sites including the base site. (That may have changed to three so be careful with your site creation.) If you run out of sites and have need for another one, all you have to do is create a new Gmail account and use it to create new sites.

1. go to www.googlepages.com and log in.
2. You can create a new site by clicking on the drop down in the upper right hand corner of the page.
3. Follow the steps to test a name for your site. It can be anything that hasn't been used yet. Be aware that once you create a site, at this time, there is no way to delete it. You will be able to delete pages from within the site, but the site itself cannot be deleted. Choose your site names carefully.
4. Select a Theme for your new site and a page layout. These can be easily changed latter. In fact, within this one site you can use multiple themes and all of the various page layouts.
5. Click OK (or submit) to create the new site.
6. There are two views that you will use in Googlepages, Site Manager and Page Editor. The view that you are in right now is the site manager. Click on the homepage (the one with the house picture) to open it in page editor.
7. Add some content to the page. Take note of the formatting tools.
8. Click Back to Site Manager. The page will be saved automatically.
9. Add a new page by clicking on the green page with the + sign, give the page a title, and click the create and edit button.
10. You can change the look and/or layout of this page by using the links in the upper right hand corner of the page.
11. You can insert images from your computer or from the web using the Image button.
12. You can create links to other pages or to files that you have uploaded (such as PowerPoint, Excel, or Word docs) using the Link button.
13. Once you have you site set up, you have to publish it for other to be able to see it. To do that from Site Manager simply click on the selection check box for a page or pages and then click the publish button.
14. You can also add gadgets to your pages. In Page Editor view click on the Add Gadgets link in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

That is not all there is to Googlepages, but those are the basics. With a little bit of time you can learn all there is to know about Page Creator and be on your way to creating a nice looking, fully functional, website. How might you use this tool in your classroom? Many teachers are who don't want to take the time to learn Frontpage or Dreamweaver are using Googlepages to create class websites and post homework assingments, class schedules, class syllabus, important announcements, etc, etc. Anything that would go on a class website can be put on a Googlepages website.

If you want to learn a little more about Googlepages and go through a step-by-step process that covers all the features you can go to http://foxesanddogs.googlepages.com. Click on the Workshop Resources link at the bottom of the page. The Workshop Outline link is a Word doc that has step by step instructions for creating a site.

Google Book Search

Google is a big company, hence the name of this workhsop, Giants in Your Classroom. Being so big and all, they have a lot of time on their hands. They have to think of things to do with all their time to justify paying the big salaries that they pay their employees. So, one of the resident geniuses came up with a rather unique idea. "Why don't we digitize all the books in the world and make them searchable!!!!" Bah, humbug! you say? Well, just know that they are on their way to doing just that. While it is true that they will never digitize ALL the books in the world, they have already digitized a whole bunch of them... and made either whole books or portions of whole books available for reading online. Not only that, if you find a book that is not avaialble for online reading, Google will tell you where you can buy it or where you can check it out! Not only that, but you can even use this cool tool to create your own virtual librar. Amazing.

From the Website....

Google Book Search allows you to search the full text of our large and growing index of books, from popular titles to old, out-of-print and public domain volumes, to find pages that include your search terms. Once you find a given book, you can browse available pages, search further in that book, find online reviews, and learn where to buy the book or check it out of a nearby library, and in some cases, even read the entire title online.

 

Google Book Search can enhance your lesson plans in all kinds of ways, by enabling you to search for, and helping you locate, countless volumes you might not have been able to find any other way. Book Search finds can enhance everything from your bibliographies to your lesson plans; you and your students can access the full text of out-of-copyright books and search the full text of most other books to find the right volumes for any given assignment, project, or lesson.

 

Google Book Search will also enhance your students’ research by allowing them to access information from thousands of books with one quick search. Students can access and read the full text of out-of-copyright books, learn where to locate hard-to-find volumes in libraries or bookstores, and easily create more thorough bibliographies. 

Let's take a look at Google Book Search and see how it works.

1. There are two different ways to get to Book Search.
   1. Go to www.google.com/educators and click on the Tools For Your Classroom link. The first tool, as you see, is Book Search.
   2. Go http://books.google.com
2. The first thing that I want you notice is that you can browse by category. Pick a category and let's see what is there.
3. On the blue bar near the top of the page there are three links which allow you to see all books, books with a limited preview, and full books, books that you can read from cover to cover online right in the comfort of your own home.
4. Click on a book and take a look at what is available. (Check the options in the pane on the right side of the window.)
5. Go back to the first search page (http://books.google.com) and let's approach this in a little bit different way, probably a more useful way in terms of how you might use this tool in your classroom.
6. Pick a topic, maybe one related to your suject area or something that you students might search for. I am going to search for information about spiders
7. There are 9400 references to spiders in the books that Google has digitized. Notice that you can refine your search at the top of the page. This should prove very useful. (this only appears if you use a single search term (I think).)
8. Let's change our search a little bit. Suppose that I am looking for something about the lifecycle of a spider. (spider, lifecycle)
9. Change views to list view (upper right hand corner) and notice that there are page references on some of the hits. That could prove very useful.
10. When you find a book that you want to return to (use in next 9 weeks unit) simply click Add to My Library (on the right pane). Now you come to Book Search you will see a link at the top right hand corner of the page that says "My Library." When you click on it you will see your virtual library.

Google Scholar

This is another tool that you might find useful, although some of the results from this search were password protected and you had to pay to see them. Some of them aren't and that makes it worth taking a look at.

From the website.... 

 

What is Google Scholar?
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research.

Features of Google Scholar

• Search diverse sources from one convenient place
• Find papers, abstracts and citations
• Locate the complete paper through your library or on the web
• Learn about key papers in any area of research

 This is the link to the help page which has some additonal information about Scholar.

http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/help.html

Try doing a search or two on Google Scholar to see how it works and determine if this might be useful to you.

Google Groups

Google Groups is another tool that you should be familiar with. It is a collaboration/communication tool that many teachers across the country and around the world are beginning to use. We aren't going to set up a group today, but I want you to at least get a feel for what a group is.

1. Go to http://groups.google.com and find the link that says "Take the Tour" and take the tour.
2. Now let me show you a bit of what a group might look like.
3. Show them the Next Generation Teachers group.
4. Point out the posts and how I would create new post.
5. Show them how I would upload a file to share with others in the group (translate that class)
6. Click on the Edit my membership link to show how I find out about new posts to this group.
7. Tell them there is a very good pdf on their disk about using Groups

 Google Alerts

 One last tool that you might be interested in taking a look at is Google Alerts. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

1. Go to www.google.com/alerts
2. Enter a search term (Dallas Cowboys)
3. Fill in the rest of the information and click on Create Alert
4. Now you will get an email update on your chosen topic based on the selections that you made. And you will keep getting them until you click on the link to manage your alerts and remove the alert.
5. You can set up as many alerts as you want to.
   

Talk about Google Apps for Education